CHAPTER XXI.

OPENING FORTY-SECOND CONGRESS.-DEPOSITION OF CHARLES SUMNER FROM CHAIRMANSHIP OF FOREIGN RELATIONS. — EXCITING Debate. -GRAVE INJUSTICE TO MR. SUMNER.-DEMOCRATIC SENATORS OPPOSE THE ACT.-NEW SENATORS. - MATT W. RANSOM.-FRank P. Blair, Jun. — HENRY G. DAVIS.-POWELL CLAYTON. — ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE. MR. BLAINE RE-ELECTED SPEAKER. — Democrats CONTROL MORE THAN ONE-THIRD OF HOUSE. - VALUABLE ACCESSIONS TO MEMBERSHIP.-POLITICAL DISABILITIES. — REMOVED FROM INDIVIDUALS. — GENERAL AMNESTY PROPOSED. CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. COURSE OF COLORED MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE.-THEIR JUSTICE AND MAGNANIMITY.

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THE opening of the Forty-second Congress,.on the 4th of March,

the Senate of the United States. Charles Sumner was deposed from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, — a position he had held continuously since the Republican party gained control of the Senate. The cause of his displacement may be found in the angry contentions to which the scheme of annexing San Domingo gave rise. Mr. Sumner's opposition to that project was intense, and his words carried with them what was construed as a personal affront to the President of the United States, though never so intended by the Massachusetts senator. When the committees were announced from the Republican caucus on the 10th of March, 1871, by Mr. Howe of Wisconsin, Mr. Cameron of Pennsylvania appeared as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations and Mr. Sumner was assigned to the chairmanship of a new committee, Privileges and Elections, — created for the exigency.1

The removal of Mr. Sumner from his place had been determined in a caucus of Republican senators, and never was the power of the caucus more wrongfully applied. Many senators were compelled, from their sense of obedience to the decision of the majority, to commit an act against their conceptions of right, against what they believed to be justice to a political associate, against what they

1 Objection was not interposed against Mr. Cameron personally. By seniority he was entitled to the place in the event of a vacancy. The controversy related solely to the refusal to give Mr. Sumner his old position.

believed to be sound public policy, against what they believed to be the interest of the Republican party. The caucus is a convenience in party organization to determine the course to be pursued in matters of expediency which do not involve questions of moral obligation or personal justice. Rightfully employed, the caucus is not only useful but necessary in the conduct and government of party interests. Wrongfully applied, it is a weakness, an offense, a stumbling-block in the way of party prosperity.

Mr. Sumner's deposition from the place he had so long honored was not accomplished, however, without protest and contest. Mr. Schurz made an inquiry of Mr. Howe as to the grounds upon which the senator was to be deposed; and the answer was that "the personal relations between the senator from Massachusetts and the President of the United States and the head of the State Department are such as preclude all social intercourse between them." "In brief," said Mr. Howe, "I may say that the information communicated to us was that the senator from Massachusetts refused to hold personal intercourse with the Secretary of State."

-Mr. Schurz, sitting near Mr. Sumner, immediately answered for that senator that "he had not refused to enter into any official relations, either with the President of the United States or with the Secretary of State; and that upon inquiry being made of him, Mr. Sumner had answered that he would receive Mr. Fish as an old friend, and would not only be willing but would be glad to transact such matters and to discuss such questions as might come up for consideration." And Mr. Sumner added: "In his own house."

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- Mr. Wilson, the colleague of Mr. Sumner, spoke with great earnestness against the wrong contemplated by the act: "Sir," said he, we saw Stephen A. Douglas, on this floor, at the bidding of Mr. Buchanan's administration, in obedience to the demands of the slaveholding leaders and the all-conquering slave power, put down, disrated, from his committee. We saw seeds then sown that blossomed and bore bitter fruit at Charleston in 1860. Now we propose to try a similar experiment. I hope and trust in God that we shall not witness similar results. I love justice and fair play, and I think I know enough of the American people to know that ninety-nine hundredths of the men who elected this administration in 1868 will disapprove this act." Mr. Trumbull, Mr. Logan and Mr. Tipton were the only Republican senators who joined with Mr. Wilson in openly deprecating the decree of the party caucus.

- Mr. Edmunds, who was one of the active promoters of Mr. Sumner's deposition, declared that the question was "whether the Senate of the United States and the Republican party are quite ready to sacrifice their sense of duty to the whims of one single man, whether he comes from New England, or from Missouri, or from Illinois, or from anywhere else." He described the transaction as a business affair of changing a member from one committee to another for the convenience of the Senate, and said: "When I hear my friend from Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] and the senator from Missouri [Mr. Schurz] making these displays about a mere matter of ordinary convenience, it reminds me of the nursery story of the children who thought the sky was going to fall, and it turned out in the end that it was only a rose-leaf that had fallen from a bush to the ground."

...

Senator Sherman defended the right of the caucus to make the decision. "Whenever that decision is made known," said he, "every one, however high may be his position, however great his services, is bound by the common courtesies which prevail in these political bodies to yield at once. I feel it my duty to make this explanation of the vote I shall give. I think I am bound by the decision made after full debate upon this mere personal point, involving only the question whether the honorable senator from Massachusetts shall occupy the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations or the chairmanship of the Committee on Privileges and Elections."

Other incidents connected with the removal tended to give it the air of discourtesy to Mr. Sumner. One feature of it was especially marked and painful. Mr. Sumner's acquaintance in Europe, certainly in England, was larger than that of any other member of the Senate. His speech on the Alabama claims was the first utterance on the subject which had arrested the attention of England, and now, as if in rebuke of his patriotic position, the Queen's High Commissioners directly after their arrival in Washington were called to witness a public indignity toward Mr. Sumner. The action of the Senate was, in effect, notice to the whole world that Mr. Sumner was to have no further connection with a great international question to which he had given more attention than any other person con

nected with the Government.

Mr. Sumner declined the service to which he was assigned, and from that time forward to the day of his death he had no rank as chairman, no place upon a committee of the Senate, no committee. room for his use, no clerk assigned to him for the needed discharge

of his public duties. When Mr. Sumner entered the Senate twenty years before, the pro-slavery leaders who then controlled it had determined at one time in their caucus to exclude him from all committee service on account of his offensive opinions in regard to slavery, but upon sober second thought they concluded that a persecution of that kind would add to Mr. Sumner's strength rather than detract from it. He was therefore given the ordinary assignments of a new member by the Southern men in control and was thence regularly advanced until he became a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, under the chairmanship of James M. Mason, with Douglas and Slidell as fellow-members.

For his fidelity to principle and his boldness in asserting the truth at an earlier day Mr. Sumner was struck down in the Senate chamber by a weapon in the hands of a political foe. It was impossible to anticipate that fifteen years later he would be even more cruelly struck down in the Senate by the members of the party he had done so much to establish. The cruelty was greater in the latter case, as anguish of spirit is greater than suffering of body. In both instances. Mr. Sumner's bearing was distinguished by dignity and magnanimity. He gave utterance to no complaints, and silently submitted to the unjustifiable wrong of which he was a victim. That nothing might be lacking in the extraordinary character of the final scene of his deposition, the Democratic senators recorded themselves against the consummation of the injustice. They had no co-operation from the Republicans. The caucus dictation was so strong that discontented Republicans merely refrained from voting.

The personal changes in the Senate, under the new elections, were less numerous than usual. General Logan took the place of Richard Yates from Illinois, having been promoted from the House, where his service since the war had been efficient and distinguished.

Matt W. Ransom, a Confederate soldier who had held high command in General Lee's army, took the place of Joseph C. Abbott of North Carolina. Mr. Ransom had been well educated at the University at Chapel Hill, was a lawyer by profession, had been Attorney-General of his State, and had served several years in the Legislature. Severe service in the field during the four years of the war had somewhat impaired his health, but his personal bearing

and the general moderation of his views rapidly won for him many friends in both political parties.

-General Frank P. Blair, jun., entered as senator from Missouri a few weeks preceding the 4th of March, filling the place made vacant by the resignation of Senator Drake, who was appointed to the Bench of the Court of Claims. General Blair's political career had been somewhat checkered and changeful. Originally a Democrat of the Van Buren type, he had helped to organize the Republican party after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He remained a Republican until the defection of Andrew Johnson, when he joined the Democrats, and became so vituperatively hostile that the Senate in 1866 successively rejected his nomination for Collector of Internal Revenue in the St. Louis district, and for Minister to Austria. He was a good soldier, rose to the rank of Major-General, and secured the commendation of General Grant, which was far more than a brevet from the War Department. His defeat for the Vice-Presidency had, if possible, increased his antagonism to the Republican party, and he now came to the Senate as much embittered against his late associates as he had been against the Democrats ten years before. He was withal a generous-minded man of strong parts, but the career for which nature fitted him was irreparably injured by the unsteadiness of his political course.

-Henry G. Davis, a native of Maryland, entered as the first Democratic senator from West Virginia. His personal popularity was a large factor in the contest against the Republicans of his State, and he was naturally rewarded by his party as its most influential leader. Mr. Davis had honorably wrought his own way to high station, and had been all his life in active affairs. As a farmer, a railroad man, a lumberman, an operator in coal, a banker, he had been uniformly successful. He came to the Senate with that kind of practical knowledge which schooled him to care and usefulness as a legislator. He steadily grew in the esteem and confidence of both sides of the Senate, and when his party attained the majority he was entrusted with the responsible duty of the chairmanship of the Committee on Appropriations. No more painstaking or trustworthy man ever held the place. While firmly adhering to his party, he was at all times courteous, and in the business of the Senate or in social intercourse never obtruded partisan views. He was re-elected without effort, but early gave notice that at the end of his second term he would retire from active political life.